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Comment by roacato | Hacker News Reader

Despite the name, openipc isn't fully open - the main recorder/encoder app (majestic) is closed source. Many openipc developers have moved to an alternative project named "thingino" which has a fully open source recorder/encoder/streamer.

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> https://thingino.com/

> https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware

Nice, it actually supports several popular Amazon US "no-name" brands, including Imou and Wansview! (Plus, several mainstream Eufy, TP-Link and Wyze cameras are supported by thingino as well.) Seems to be more user-friendly than OpenIPC, too.

I'm generally the guy making "easy installers" for Thingino cams. The default way to install on a cam is to use a flash programmer, some devices you can use a uart adapter.. I try to find opportunities in the factory firmware that allow you to flash using just a SD card when possible, and publish walkthrough videos on my channel. Some other devices you can flash with a flash glitch trick at boot, which I have several devices documented for that method as well. I'm a huge proponent of privacy and security being available to everyone and not just the technically minded user, and being able to get a commodity priced camera to faithfully serve a non-technical user is my goal!

More info is at my installers repo https://github.com/wltechblog/thingino-installers or my YT channel (WLTechBlog)

I wonder if there is business in buying those cameras in bulk, flash them with thingio and resell them as "open" camera. Not sure if it's even legal. I guess flashing the camera probably void the warranty and the margin would be razor thin anyway.

NO, flashing the camera DOES NOT void the warranty. Repairing things does not void warranty. Opening cases does not void warranty.

FUD misinformation and lies from manufacturers.

There are people using Thingino to provide security camera services. Just selling the cam pre-flashed probably isn't a great plan as I go out of my way to make it as easy as possible for people to flash our firmware themselves!

I have the impression that most security cameras on Amazon are subsidized with their subscription services.

Also, because many of these brands are no-name, you get the inverse volume discounts — you can get 1 camera for less per-unit cost compared to buying 2 or more.

Starting a business may make more sense if you're willing to go directly to the manufacturer, and have the manufacturer flash the firmware directly at the factory. Even then, why would people buy from you at $30 when they can buy an encumbered version for $15 and follow a few instructions?

It should be sold at a higher price. You perform a service by “unlocking” the camera.

Our firmware is open source, if you think you can provide an upsell on pre-installed cams, go for it!

Thanks for doing that! And welcome to HN!

Do you know if Wansview Q5 can be installed easily or not? I think it's one of the only cams on the thingino list that's available in the US with super-fast Amazon FBA shipping for under $20 USD and with lots of stock.

The Q5 is on our supported list. I have a user who YOLOd and tried the Cinnado D1 (t23) installer and claimed success. Cinnado and Wasnview (and galayou and a few others!) are owned by the same company so a lot of things are shared.

I just successfully used the Cinnado T23 installer on a Q5 and it worked. It did seem to take two tries, but I could have been being impatient.

Same here. I ordered from the link in the sibling comment. Mine took a few tries to connect to wifi.

> I have a user who YOLOd and tried the Cinnado D1 (t23) installer and claimed success.

Oh, wait, Cinnado D1 is only $14.99! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBBT5RMP

That's cheaper than Wansview Q5! (Unless the Woot deal returns.)

yep I've got a video on the installation on my channel too!

That’s a great project, thanks for your work. I even have a couple of cameras around the house that look like they should work with this. Do you have any suggestions for an open NVR to pair with cameras running this firmware?

There are easily 50 different NVR applications out there. They differentiate themselves based on processing and analysis versus supported platforms.

Frigate is a reasonably immature project but it is getting better with each release. Blue Iris is adored but it does have a Windows requirement so that might disqualify it for you.

Yes I’m aware. But the whole point of this open firmware afaiu is that is enables use of the existing on-chip AI features for these particular cameras. Which means that something like Frigate - which focuses on running such AI features separately on, e.g., a coral accelerator - might not be a good fit. That’s why I sought the maintainer’s opinion.

https://thingino.com/

I love how the front page doesn't scream SOCs/SOMs to you and is just straight up here's the compatible cameras with pictures (with some SOM info below).

Yup. And these cameras supported by thingino are also available on Amazon for under $30, too, some as low as $20 or below!

This project only seems to support Ingenic SOCs (as per https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware). A far cry from the list supported by openipcam.

Edit: But they have a list of product names, where they support installation of Thingino: https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/d...

The ING in Thingino stands for Ingenic. The Ingenic chips are MIPS, all the other cams are ARM. Focusing on these chips allows us to produce a firmware that actually works (not my experience with openipc) and is already configured for a specific product so you don't have to spend hours figuring out specifics for your camera to enable the hardware features!

Thank you for your work! Can you recommend a compatible LAN POE camera available on Amazon(.de?)

POE hasn't really made it to the commodity level you'll find on Amazon. There are some Vanhua models available on Aliexpress.. we also have some users successfully using various POE to USB adapters. I don't use one myself so i can't personally vouch for one... note that not all cams have data available on their USB ports, if you have questions about a specific choice, come visit us on Discord!

> https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware/blob/master/d...

Good list. Happy to see Imou and Wansview on the list, these "unknown" brands have been selling directly on Amazon US for a while now:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Wansview/page/1E1F86AB-C01A-45...

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Imou/page/73EC8A3D-1E78-42C5-8...

Sorry, you are slightly mistaken and mislead the colleagues present here.

The OpenIPC project is completely open wherever possible, but it allows the use of various streamers Divinus/Majestic/Mini/Venc/other and various binary drivers and libraries if the chip manufacturer does not provide open source code.

The Divinus streamer is a great alternative to Majestic and it is open and also part of the OpenIPC ecosystem - https://github.com/openipc/divinus

I guess encoder app is separate from encoder proper, because I have to assume the bulk of the encoder is done in hardware. I mean, those things can do realtime h265 in 4k without a beefy CPU or getting hot.

Most of the image/video related stuff is done in the hardware, as well as a bunch of other functionality that would be hard to do on a 1 watt cpu. Check out the block diagram of the T31 processor: https://en.ingenic.com.cn/products-detail/id-21.html

Our streamer (prudynt-t) communicates with those blocks to handle settings, overlays, etc and receives the pre-processed image/video/audio data, packages it up for rtsp//mjpeg/etc, and handles client connections, motion sending, day/night vision, etc.

This is the status quo for ip cameras regardless of vendor!

How much memory do these cams have? What's the beefiest camera that's still a good value, e.g., cheap? Any support 5GHz yet?

These processors range between 32 and 128 megabytes of ram, and a chunk of that is reserved at bootup for the hardware feature blocks.

We have a couple devices that support 5ghz, but I don't think any of them are on my favorites list. I picked up a Wansview G6 which is a light bulb format cam, my least favorite, but it was our first dual band device. More to follow!

That seems very little RAM, do they even support ssh?

Is there a comparison table which devices have how much RAM etc?

BTW, do you know if Amcrest ASH21 are supported? They look identical to Imou Ranger 2 from the front, although Amcrest does have an RJ45 in the back, whereas Ranger 2 possible doesn't?

Thingino has ssh. There are product docs available with the differences between chips, but in a nutshell X series have 128MB and others have 64, except for a newcomer (T23DL) that only has 32! For normal usage, 64MB is enough. The 32MB chip works well enough but you'll need to have an SD card inserted to do online firmware updates which otherwise isn't necessary.

If you don't see a specific device on our site, we either haven't seen one yet or we know it's not compatible. We rely on users to find new devices in the wild that we can port to, if you see an Ingenic chip in a cam not on the site let us know!

The link says up to one gigabit of ram which, aside from measuring as a gigabit being unusual, is 128mb.

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